Lenovo Agrees to Buy IBM's Low-End Server Business for $2.3bn (£1.4bn)Thurday Jan 23,2014

China's Lenovo - the world's biggest PC maker - has agreed to buy IBM's low-end server business for $2.3bn (£1.4bn) in a widely anticipated deal.

The deal was announced on Thursday Jan 23,2014 .About $2bn will be paid in cash with the rest in Lenovo stock

IBM is selling its x86 "low-end" server business, which includes the System x, BladeCenter and Flex System products, it is retaining its powerful mainframe and storage business.

About 7,500 IBM staff will be given the option of transferring to Lenovo.

 Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive of IBM Software and Systems division said"This divestiture allows IBM to focus on system and software innovations that bring new kinds of value to strategic areas of our business, such as cognitive computing, big data and cloud,"


Note
In 2005 Lenovo bought IBM's PC business  featuring the ThinkPad range and since diversified into smartphones and tablets, and overtook Hewlett-Packard as the world's top PC maker in 2012.